Pesticide Exposure, Farmworker Rights, and Immigration Reform

A look at how policy change on immigration can benefit farmworkers and the future of sustainable agriculture.

I am three-quarters
Portuguese. My father’s relatives
immigrated from an agricultural province on the island of Madeira, Portugal. They fell on hard times, during which famine and poor crop conditions spurred their relocation to Hawaii. The family, including three
children, set sail around the horn of South America to the Hawaiian islands in
the 1880’s on what must have been a long
and arduous trip at sea.

Their ship
passage was paid for by the Hawaiian Board of Immigration. Once they landed, they started a three-year
contract working for the Olowalu Sugar Company as indentured servants to pay
back their ship passage. The contract
that I have shows how much they each earned – married men were paid $18-$20 a month
depending on their age, and the number and age of their children. Women received 25 cents to 50 cents per day, a sum which also depended upon their children.

Were they treated
well? Did they feel safe? Were they
discriminated against with their darker skin and foreign language?

Indentured servitude still exists today, though perhaps in a different form. Immigrants to the U.S. often face dangerous border crossings and pay thousands of dollars to arrive at their employers. Then they have to
work off their expenses, or worse, are forced into modern-day slavery. Barry
Easterbrook points this out in his book Tomatoland
(Easterbrook, Barry; 2011; Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC).

NCAP is taking steps to be a stronger ally in the movement to secure equity,
justice, and better protections for immigrant farmworkers...especially from hazards like pesticides.

At the federal level, we're pushing for stronger pesticide monitoring programs including
better analysis of how pesticides are impacting farmworkers. Better monitoring would mean more informed health and environmental agencies, and in theory, stronger more effective protections.

Another part of this federal work is immigration reform, perhaps the most important issue for
farmworkers. As new policies are crafted in Congress, it is crucial that they lead to
better working conditions for all immigrants including farmworkers. No more
indentured servitude or slavery conditions, but rather an equitable system where farmworkers have a voice.

When farmworkers are given more ability to shape their working conditions, they have more ability to protect human dignity, to strive for labor rights, and implement on-the-job safety and training that protects them from exposure to pesticides.

There are an
estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and the only way
to resolve this problem is to legalize them, giving them either work visas
(temporary status) or green cards (Legal Permanent Resident status). Long-term
residents given temporary visas should have a fast-track opportunity to obtain
green cards.

2. A path to
citizenship for those who continue to work in the United States

There should be
a clear path to citizenship for anyone brought into the United States to work.
We should not create groups of second-class workers who can never become
citizens. Not all immigrants will stay and choose this path, but the
opportunity should exist.

3. All
workers have full labor rights, including the right to change jobs and work for
any employer

By granting all
immigrant workers full labor rights, their impact on the labor market will be
minimized. There should be no restrictions on the labor market mobility of any
group of immigrants. This is a basic American value. Farm workers should be
included in the protected right to freedom of association and collective
bargaining, as they are in a few states. All immigrant workers should also be
able to collect on insurance payments that they and their employers contribute,
including unemployment, workman’s compensation, disability, and social
security. They should also have the right to have drivers’ licenses, have some
way to purchase health insurance, and be included in nutrition programs.

4.
Enforcement of labor law standards

The continued
provision of immigrant labor to American employers should be counterbalanced
with strict enforcement of labor standards.

5. No
industry-specific guestworker programs

Programs that
limit workers’ rights and trap them in specific jobs or industry sectors will
simply lead to desertion and the continued employment of undocumented workers
by employers for whom the guestworker programs are too costly, slow, or
unworkable. Guestworker programs are unfair to the workers involved, present
unfair competition to domestic workers, favor a particular set of employers
with the resources to utilize them, and create incentives leading away from a
legal labor force.

6. Work visa
program for manually skilled workers and other classes of workers implemented
rapidly

In order to
avoid the re-creation of an undocumented labor market in agriculture and other
manually-skilled sectors, we propose that the government move rapidly to implement
programs of provisional work visas for new immigrants. These portable work
visas, good for some period of years, would allow immigrants to enter and exit
the United States and work for any qualified employer.

7. Quotas of
different provisional worker types set by a commission

A commission
would set the total number of manually skilled or highly educated or other
types of workers that would be admitted, define the characteristics of such
workers, choose the countries of origin, and decide which employers would be
qualified to hire them, if not all employers. It could also conduct research on
the role and trajectory of immigrants in the American economy.

8. Minimize
the role of the federal government after issuance of visas; rely on labor
markets

Every attempt
should be made to confine the government’s role to issuing the visas and
enforcing laws, both immigration laws and labor laws.

9. Fees are
charged to immigrants to cover the direct costs of the programs

Though it is no
doubt true that the costs of such immigration programs should be borne by all
of society, immigrants can be charged fees to cover the direct costs. Employers
should not be charged excessive fees for employing immigrants because it will
lead them to attempt to recover these costs through poorer wages and working
conditions.

10. Support
development programs in migrant-sending countries to encourage options to
emigration

Programs to
support development initiatives in areas of migrant origin will eventually
lessen migration pressures.

11. Support
training programs to help workers integrate into American society or return to
their countries of origin

Many manually
skilled immigrants enter the United States with low levels of formal education.
They should be provided opportunities for adult education and skill
improvement.